


Love

by MikelAgerra



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Child, F/M, Gay, Letters, Love, M/M, Marriage, Tears, relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 02:02:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9856934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MikelAgerra/pseuds/MikelAgerra
Summary: Harry and Draco have been together for a long long time.What happen's when Draco decides to tell Astoria?





	

\---  
_Don’t come by to my place today._  
_I’m telling her and there is nothing that you can say to me that will stop me from doing so. I apologize in advance if the outcome hurts you us. I hope everything will be fine, if not now then at least in a few days. I’ll consider it a success if she takes it even half as well as how Ginny deals with it._  
_I miss you._

_D_  
\---

He folds the letter and ties it to Roxxon, his owl, “Harry Potter” he says with a deep breath.  
As Roxxon flies away he hears Astoria in the living room and gets up from his study sighing. His internal monologue rambling, not helping him at all. Walking to her, seeing her balancing Scorpius on one hip and a bouquet of fresh flowers in her other hand, his gut wrenches.  
_Fuck._  
She accio’s the vase and settles the flowers in them before sending the vase into its proper location and that’s when she notices Draco in the passage. “Hey there, didn’t see you, I thought you were in your study.” Draco smiles at her, “I was, then I heard you. Flowers? ”  
“I met Ginny downstairs, she was coming up but then she met me so she handed the flowers over, invited us to their house tomorrow for Christmas dinner...I don’t know why she does that anymore, we know we’ll be going to her place just like next year they’ll be at our place and the year after we’ll be at theirs.” Astoria shook her head and tucked a corner of her hair back into its place, behind her ear and placed Scorpius on the couch.  
“So she gave you flowers? Why?”  
“I have no idea why. Why does Ginny Weasley do anything? No one knows, its just the way she is.”  
“Hmm” Draco nods.  
_I have to do it. There is no other way to this. I have to tell her. Circe! Okay…_  
“Astoria?” he says and walks to her.  
“Uh-huh?” she responds looking at the purse, searching for something.  
“Come here.” Draco sits on one of the chairs of the dining table and asks her to sit on the one closest to his. Astoria sits but there is mild confusion clearly etched on her face. By the way she looks at him, unblinkingly, Draco knows.  
“Astoria?”  
“Yes, Draco?”  
The silence is deafening.  
He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He closes his lips and gulps once. Running a hand to smoothen his already smooth hair he looks at the ground and then at the way Astoria has clasped her hands together in her lap. He sees the white knuckles, the greenish veins that are popping out ever so slightly on her arms, he sees her nails painted perfectly in a peach colour, he sees the wedding band that she wore which bore the Malfoy crest, he sees the hands he had held on the day that they were married.  
“Harry is not a friend.”  
He sees the way she clasps her hands a bit more tightly than before. He can hear the silence.  
“He isn’t just a friend to me. We’ve … we’ve been together, for a long, long time now, years. I-I ..” Draco stops, not knowing what to say.  
He raises his eyes to meet Astoria’s. She is still looking at him with her steady unflinching unblinking way and for a moment he thinks that she didn’t hear him at all. So he repeats,  
“Harry and I have been seeing each other, he isn’t just a friend to me, he’s more.”  
He sees a sight tremble in her fingers as she reaches up to tuck a strand of her hair, a strand that wasn’t un-tucked in the first place.  
“Okay.”  
Draco looks at her. Waiting for her to say something, to continue. But she doesn’t.  
_Okay? What does she mean by ‘okay.’_  
“Okay?” Draco’s confusion is tangible.  
“What do you want me to say? I knew.”  
“You knew?”  
“It was a hunch, I didn’t know for sure. But I definitely had thought about it. So yes, I guess I knew.”  
“You knew?”  
Astoria looked at him, her gaze steely now. She stood up, “Yes Draco. I just said that. I didn’t know for sure, but yea, I had my doubts sometimes.”  
“Why- Why didn’t you say anything? You never asked, you never even mentioned anything to me. Ever.”  
“Why I didn’t ask something? Why?” Astoria’s voice had taken on a slightly sharper edge now.  
Draco just sat, dumbfound, perplexed. Out of all the possibilities he never accounted for one in which she already knew. He had no idea how to proceed from here.  
“What was I supposed to ask you? Oh Draco, my darling, are you sleeping with Harry Potter? Ho long have you been sleeping with each other? Is he better than me in bed? Does he make you moan with ecstasy? What do you suppose I should have asked you? And even if I did, when should I have asked you? At the dinner table? In front of Harry and Ginny? When?”  
Draco opened his mouth but Astoria continued,  
“And why Draco? Why should I have to ask you? Why should the need even arise? I don’t think any woman who is married entertains this kind of thought about her husband. So forgive me, but when I thought about such things, about you and harry, I didn’t give it much thought because I thought I was being silly, paranoid. And I know ive always overthought everything, from my very childhood, so when it came to you and harry I thought this was also something that I was overthinking, so I let it go. And now you are sitting here asking me why , why I didn’t say anything? Why I never mentioned anything? For Merlin’s sake im sorry I didn’t okay?! I’m sorry.”  
“I didn’t – I didn’t mean it that way, i-”  
“You what? What way did you mean it then?”  
Draco was straining his neck, looking at Astoria standing while he was sitting down. Suddenly Scorpius started whining. Draco got up.  
“NO. No, you sit back down. I’m not done talking.”  
Draco shifted his position from half sitting/standing to fully sitting on the chair.  
Astoria pulled out the chair again and sat, facing him, after scratching her eyebrow and tucking another strand of her already undisturbed hair.  
“Why?” she asked, her voice calmer now.  
“Why what?”  
She looked at him dead-eye.  
“Why tell me now? What made you tell me now, this particular day. What happened all of a sudden? You tell me you both are togeth- you both are a.. a thing, for years. Years. So why now?”  
\--  
__  
“It’s okay, I understan-d”  
Draco hated the slight falter in Harry’s voice, and he hated the fact that the reason was he himself even more. He shook his head, “No.”  
“What no Draco? Be reasonable about this. That is your family and I understand and I’m with you one hundred percent if you choose to stay with them. That is the right thin-”  
“Shut up. Jut don’t okay? Don’t. No. I’m not doing it, so stop telling me to, I Cant.”  
“So what will you do?”  
Draco looks at Harry, leans forward and places a light kiss on his lips, “I’m going to tell her.”  
Harry withdraws almost immediately, and looks at him, “No.”  
“yes.”  
“No. No Draco. That is a very very, I cant stress this enough, that is a very bad idea.”  
“Maybe. But I’m going to do it.”  
“”NO! she will not understand Draco. She – she wont. She just, she is a mother Draco. She is the mother of your child. She wont understand she will want to protect her family at all costs. She is not Ginny. She just-”  
“Shh-hh” Draco shushes Harry up and places soft kisses on his lips, one after the other in quick succession.  
“I can’t let you go on like this, go on feeling so.. so distraught about me, about us, it feels gut wrenchingly wrong. I can’t… I can’t let you go.”  
“Oh boy” harry sighs into Draco’s lips and pulls him closer.  
“I can’t” Draco repeats before being pulled into Harry’s overwhelming warmth.  
  
\--

Draco shakes his head, having Harry’s voice resonating in his mind was not going to help his situation.  
“It’s not anything. Nothing, nothing happened as such.”  
“Oh! So you are telling me out of the goodness in your heart? Let’s tell Astoria now before it’s too la-” She stands up abruptly.  
“Oh my god” she whispers, a trembling hand goes and touches her lips, and the hand stays there. She looks at Scorpius who is looking at them with wide eyes and dried tears on his cheeks.  
“Oh my god” she repeats, looking back and giving all her attention to Draco and just like that, the tension in the room changed. Draco could feel it.  
“Is it because of Scorpius?”  
“Huh?” Draco was utterly confused.  
“Is it now that you have Scorpius, now that the Malfoy family has an heir to carry forward their name, that suddenly you feel there is no need , no need of me. That you can dispose me. That now that all your obligations are done with, I’m just somebody who needs to be dealt with as be removed from the equation?”  
“What are you talking about Astoria? That’s utter rubbish and you know it!”  
“I KNOW NOTHING! I just know that my husband, that MY HUSBAND has been FUCKING HARRY POTTER! That’s all that I know.”  
Draco stood up, “I am not telling you this out of the goodness of my heat as you so conveniently put it, I am -”  
“As I so conveniently put it? How are you talking to me like this? With what audacity are you using sarcasm?”  
Draco sighed, “I’m sorry. I didn-”  
“You are sorry? No. don’t be sorry for the way you are talking t me. Be sorry for what you did.” She almost spat out.  
“What I did?”  
“What about it is not clear to you? YES! What you did with Harry. ”  
“Did?”  
Astoria’s anger was laced with scathing confusion and layered with total disapproval.  
“What are you talking about? Yes! 'Did' . WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU REPEATING IT?! Again and again and again.”  
“Because you used the wrong tense.” Draco’s voice was deathly quiet after Astoria’s screams.  
She took a few steps back, “Wrong tense?”  
“What I did, I haven’t stopped doing it. So it’s what I am doing, not what I did.”  
“You, you- you are so sick right now, I can’t stand the sight of you anymore. How the fu-”  
She was cut off by loud rapid knocking. Astoria ignored it and proceeded to talk when another bout of knocking followed, and by the time the third round started Scorpius’ cries were sky high.  
Draco went to the door, seeing that Astoria made no movement, and opened it.  
“You guys take a lo-”  
Ginny stopped talking seeing Draco’s face and hearing Scorpius burn out his throat with his cries and turns to see fat tears pouring out of his silver eyes.  
“What the ?!” she walks into their apartment and Draco softly closes the door behind her. Ginny picks up Scorpius from the couch and bounces him in her arms shushing him and placing soft kisses on the top of his head. Once he is comparatively quiet, his sobs have turned into low hiccups, She turns around and gives a murderous glance at the two of them. Astoria is silent, somehow subdued and Draco is looking at Astoria and then at the floor.  
“What in the name of Merlin’s beard is wrong with you two? Scorp is crying his heart out on the sofa and you both don’t give a damn?”  
Draco doesn’t answer her and Astoria just looks like she might tear her hair out any moment.  
“Hello? I am positive that I talking to you two, so can you please, for the love of god answer me?”  
“What are you doing here?” the harsh undertone which Astoria tries to mask, is quite evident to Ginny when she speaks and is taken aback by it.  
Stroking Scorpius’ back she answers, “I came here to invite you’ll to our house for Christmas dinner.”  
Astoria gives her a blank look, “Is this a joke?”  
Ginny gives her a strange look and raises an eyebrow as if asking what the hell are you talking about?  
“You literally met me downstairs and gave me flowers and invited us for Christmas dinner and left because you met a friend and now you are back saying you want to invite us for Christmas dinner? What the fuck is going on today? Oh my god, I need to-” she breaks of the sentence and pours herself a glass of water.  
Ginny looks at her, and thinks back to her day and realizes that she had indeed invited, “Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot.” She then looks to Draco who looks very uncomfortable and withdrawn from the whole situation.  
Draco feels Ginny’s eyes on him and looks up and shrugs indelicately.  
Ginny’s eyes widen, but only for a moment. Suddenly everything starts falling into place in her mind. Why Scorpius was being neglected, why Astoria, who is always composed and sophisticated was in such a state, why Draco looked liked he was in immense pain and why Harry was so distant in the morning.  
She walked over to Draco and handed over Scorpius to him. “Go to Harry, I’m sure they’ll be breakfast at our place if you feel like eating, Ill handle this.”  
Draco shook his head, shifting Scorpius in his arms so that he was in a more comfortable position. Once Scorpius rested his cheek on Draco’s shoulder, his mouth blowing bubbles on his neck he spoke, “No Ginny I can han-”  
“-Yes. Im sure you can, but I want you to go. It’ll be for the best, I know it. Trust me. Okay? Trust me.”  
“I do.” He says, looking at her.  
She nods and the pushes him towards the door, “Now go.”

\--

Astoria was sitting on the sofa now, staring into the distance. Ginny walks over and removes her sneakers and sits cross legged on the sofa facing her.  
“I know” she says softly.  
Astoria looks at her, “Know what?”  
“About Harry and Draco.” Ginny held her breath.  
Astoria kept looking at her, as if she expected Ginny to take back what she said. When Ginny didn’t say anything further, either to refute it, or to strengthen her point, Astoria wanted her gone.  
“Ginny, I want you to-”  
“Leave? I know. I know it feels awful coming to know so many different things in a single day within the hour. It’s freighting to be honest, and if I was in your place and Harry was telling me this I would be tearing the hair from his scalp at this very moment. I cannot imagine it, I swear.”  
“Where are you going with this?”  
“No where. I’m not going anywhere. I’m just talking and hoping that you will do the same.”  
Astoria sighed, “What do you want me to talk about? About the fact that I had suspicious that Draco and Harry are more than what they let on? That Draco confirmed what I always knew in my subconscious? That Harry who has been a friend to me has been fucking my husband? That his wife knew about this arrangement all along and never thought to tell me? That he never respected me, or liked me and this marriage was just a very clever cover up story for him so that the press don’t badger him about his single status? That Draco has gone to Harry and is probably fucking his brains out this very moment as we speak? What do you want me to talk about Ginny?”  
“Okay, I can assure you that the very last thing on Draco’s mind would be to fuck Harry at this moment, so you can stop thinking about that. He is probably just sitting and thinking about you right now.  
Astoria snorts, “Well that just goes on to show how well you know my husband.”  
“Ria, look at me?”  
Astoria complies.  
“Just because I’ve known all along that Harry and Draco are together doesn’t mean that I cannot understand or cannot judge your position. I’m not going to be cursing you or hexing you. I’m just here to talk to you. I’m not going to promote them to you, so stop being so defensive with me, it won’t help.”  
Astoria shakes her head ever so slightly and looks ahead, “It’s just that I’d grown used to the daily life, and now that this is out in the open, I have no idea what to do. I don’t think I can stay here knowing that Draco has slept with harry on this very couch or our bed or the kitchen or everywhere. It’ll be all I can think about, and I don’t think that it’s healthy. It’s.. I don’t know.”  
Ginny pauses for a moment to reflect on her words before taking a gulp.  
“Do you know when did I come to know about them?”  
Astoria remained silent.  
“Sixth year. I overheard Harry talking to Draco, telling him that whatever it was that was changing between them had to stop, because it wasn’t right, because he was seeing me and because Draco had a lot of obligations, social obligations and family obligations to fulfill and it would hurt less to break it up now than years later when they were too attached to do anything about it. I was there and I heard it all and do you cannot imagine what is the next thing I do !”  
Astoria remains silent.  
“Nothing. I do nothing. I did absolutely nothing. I carried on as if everything was the same even though I knew in my heart that something was amiss. And then one day I couldn’t take it any longer. So I sat with Harry and I spoke to him. I asked him why the hell is he trying to be someone he is not? Why is he trying to pretend that he loves me when he so clearly does not? Why is he trying to shove away that one person who is perfect for him in all matters that count? And he simply looks at me and I can never forget the look of relief the passes through his eyes Ria. That moment was everything.”  
Astoria looks at Ginny now.  
“So I know what you feel like, or at least something similar. The only difference is that there is a massive numbers of years between my knowing and you knowing. But I’ve also known that age is just a number. Feelings remain the same, almost always. The love I have for Harry has never gone away nor will it ever, and likewise. I know for a fact that Harry will give up his life if it comes to protect me or my honor and so would Draco for you. I know Draco cares about you Ria, that he likes you, else he never would have entertained the thought about marriage with you at all. Do you think you are the first girl who has been interested in Draco Malfoy? With his looks and money and charms and all the heroic things he’s done during the war and after? There have been many girls, but none that he liked enough to share his life with. So his telling you about Harry isn’t his way of telling you that your time is up, it’s a way to tell you that he trusts you enough to show you all of him. Because Harry is a part of him. I’d accepted that when I was fifteen years old, and I think he wants you to do that now. Will you be able to? ”  
“What? ”  
“Accept Harry?”  
“I’ve always accepted harry, he is a fr-”  
“Accept Harry knowing that he and Draco are together. Knowing that Draco and Harry are obsessed with each other. Knowing that there will never come a day when Draco and Harry will willingly give each other up and will fight the entire wizarding community if it comes to it. Knowing that Draco might choose Harry over you on multiple occasions. Knowing that he might turn to harry for many things. Knowing that Harry will know Draco better than you can ever know him. Knowing that they are not meant to be apart. Knowing all this… will you be able to?”  
“You do know that you are not helping, right?”  
“I’m not?”  
Astoria looks ahead , not replying.  
“I think you should also know a few other things.”  
Astoria remains silent.  
“Draco might love Harry, but he loves you too. Draco loves you Ria and you know it. He might not love you with the same passion as he loves Harry, he might love you in a completely different way, but he does. He loves you and he respects you, just like he will respect whatever you will have to say on this matter. He will try to make you see his side, will try to make you see why it is important for him to know that you are by his side, but Draco being Draco will never be able to fully express what he feels like and he will die on the inside. He would probably not leave Harry if you make him choose and I can say this only because I’m sure if I make Harry choose he will most probably choose Draco over me, but that doesn’t mean that he’ll be happy about it. Just because Draco will choose harry doesn’t mean that he will enjoy it. He will most likely hate himself for making you go through such a situation. And If you do make him choose Harry will tell Draco to pack his bags and kick him out of his life himself before Draco can even bring himself to say ‘I choose you Harry’, Harry won’t allow it and if roles were reversed I know that Draco would do the same thing, in a more Malfoy way. Family matters a lot to them Ria, a lot, to both of them, and you are his family. Draco needs you by his side. He needs you because he loves you and cares about you and wants you to know that he cares about you too, that no matter what he still will love you.”  
And that’s when tears start filling up Astoria’s eyes and Ginny pulls her close.  
Astoria remains silent, but her cries speak.  
-


End file.
